NAAFA Kids Project

The NAAFA Kids Project provides speakers and curriculum materials on the issue of body image. The project promotes healthy eating and exercise, combats weight-related teasing, and boosts self-esteem for children of all sizes.

The Kids Project invites people who are interested in helping kids deal with their anxieties related to weight and body image to become volunteer speakers. NAAFA provides the training materials and support to get you started. It's an experience that is incredibly valuable, for both the students and the speaker.

The Kids Project also invites teachers who want to address these important--and often overlooked--topics in their classrooms to check out the resources that NAAFA offers.

Help us to help the kids! Your voice can make a difference in the lives of children and teens.

What Kids Say About The Talks:

I learned that no matter what your body size is, if you're okay with who you are and lead a healthy lifestyle, there's nothing wrong with you.
I learned that nobody has the "wrong" body size. I think this information is controversial and correct.
I think the speaker is right, but it is hard to let go of beauty standards taught since birth.
I've never been overweight, but I do get pressure (from my mom) to keep slim or else!
The statistics about diets and discrimination were unreal.
You don't have to change who you are to fit a Spice Girl mold. I can't tell you how thrilled I am to hear of this.
I'm a thin guy, but now I feel reassured about my weight, and I hope our talk can improve my insecurities.
I hope the Kids Project sends people to speak to many more groups about this issue.

What Volunteer Speakers Say About Giving These Talks:

"This is incredibly important work. It's well worth the brief hour I spent."
--Sondra Solovay
"It was exciting to tell my story and help kids deal with their own body anxieties. I wish someone had given a talk like this in my classroom when I was younger."
--Simi Litvack
"I can't wait to go back! Giving talks about body image and size discrimination doesn't just help the kids, it helps ME."
--Heather Urban
"When I talk about body image and self-esteem, about fat and thin, I can see the relief on kids' faces. We have to break the taboo around these subjects...For the sake of young people, who might otherwise waste their lives and seriously damage their health in their attempts to achieve "perfect" thighs."
--Marilyn Wann

Why The Kids Project Is Crucial

When children experience teasing related to their weight, it's not innocent fun or something they can shrug off. It hurts. The Kids Project is dedicated to the memory of three young people who were tormented by this cruel practice.
In 1994, Brian Head was a high school sophomore in Georgia. One day, he was waiting for his economics class to begin when some students started teasing him about his weight. The teacher was on hall duty, just outside the classroom. Brian said, "I'm tired of it!" He pulled out a gun and shot himself in the head. He was 16 years old. Friends later said that Brian had been teased since he was in junior high.
Another tragedy happened in 1996, when 12-year-old Samuel Graham hung himself from the tree in the backyard of his family's Florida home. He was supposed to start middle school the next day, but he couldn't face the prospect of being teased for being the fat kid. Samuel's two younger brothers were the first to notice the body. His father refused help from emergency personnel, retrieving his son's lifeless body himself.
In 1997, an English girl named Kelly Yeomans took a fatal overdose of pain killers. She was 13 years old. For three years, she had suffered taunts about her weight from a group of teenage boys. During the week before her suicide, the bullies gathered every evening to throw butter and eggs at her family's house and shout insults like "smelly Kelly." Kelly told her parents, "It's nothing to do with you, but I can't stand it. I'm going to take an overdose." Her parents thought she was depressed, but never dreamed she'd go through with the threat. The next morning, she was dead.
These are just the cases we know about. There's no telling how many more fat kids out there are feeling just as desperate. There's no telling how many kids of all sizes suffer other types of appearance-related anxiety. What we do know is that no fat child makes it to age 18 unscathed by teasing. We do know that young people of all sizes need the support and guidance of adults who can reassure them about their very real concerns.

What The Experts Say About Teasing And Body Image

Teasing is rarely innocent fun. When surveyed, children who had leukemia said the worst part wasn't the pain, or the chemo, or the possibility of dying -- it was being teased by other children for not having hair.
Dorothea Ross, PhD, and S. Ross, PhD, "Teaching the Child with Leukemia to Cope with Teasing," Issues in Comprehensive Pediatric Nursing, 1984, volume 7, pages 59-66.
"At the elementary level, children learn that it is acceptable to dislike and deride fatness. From nursery school through college, fat students experience ostracism, discouragement, and sometimes violence. Often ridiculed by their peers and discourage by even well-meaning education employees, fat students develop low self-esteem and have limited horizons. They are deprived of places on honor rolls, sports teams, and cheerleading squads and are denied letters of recommendation." The school experience for fat children is one of "ongoing prejudice, unnoticed discrimination and almost constant harassment," while fat teachers experience "socially acceptable yet outrageous insensitivity and rudeness."
"Report on Size Discrimination," 1994, the National Education Association (an organization that represents America's teachers).
"There is an emerging view of obesity that looks not at fatness in general, but at the level of fatness for an individual. With this new view, fatness is a normal condition for some people. It is a myth that we have complete control over our body size. Studies disprove the myth...The new view of obesity emphasizes measuring weight in terms of health not numbers. For children in particular, it's important to turn our attention away from the focus of striving for a particular body weight and turn toward nurturing the whole child. In doing that, we can think about feeding children well, providing for their emotional and social needs, and letting them grow up to develop the bodies that are right for them."
"Visions" (winter 98), the newsletter of Choices for Children (a non-profit organization that implements government-run food program for kids).

Contact The NAAFA Kids Project:

naafa@naafa.org

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